


Hunger knows no friend

by Sliceofmooncake (Aesoteric)



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Flashbacks, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Starvation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-04
Updated: 2015-11-04
Packaged: 2018-04-29 20:08:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5140916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aesoteric/pseuds/Sliceofmooncake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first (and longest) of a series of shorts about how Cole might have dealt with becoming more human. Originally posted on tumblr as Dragon Age Outtakes 16.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hunger knows no friend

Cole holds his hands out, starfish-pale, to catch the sunlight. Does it feel different? Does he feel different? He looks the same, except that he is being looked at. People see him, walk around him, deliberately disrupting their own patterns to avoid him. Discord. Dis-chord. They weave their melodies into vast, complicated harmonies, and he is out of tune. A violin in the hands of a shaky child. He feels like a rosined bow.

“Hey, kid, you okay? You’re looking a little peaky, even for you.” Varric comes with concern, rough and warm like a favorite sweater.

“I don’t understand it yet.”

“Understand what?”

“Human. How it works.”

“Yeah, if you’re not used to it, it’ll throw you for a loop. Lots to get used to. Did anyone explain the basics to you yet?”

“I know what sleep is.”

“Okay, that’s a good start, how about food?”

“I don’t eat.”

“You mean you haven’t eaten at all since becoming human? No wonder you look like you’re about to topple over. Here, try this on for size.” Apple, heavy, round in his palm, full and healthy. It wants to help. ‘You are hungry’, it says.

There are different types of ‘hungry’. Cole counted them once because he couldn’t count days. The dungeon of the Spire was dark, he slept and he woke, and could not tell night from day.

_First hunger. Just a knowing, a little extra space where there was none before. He can ignore it and he does._

_Second hunger brings rumblings, bubbles that roll up the inside of his stomach and cluster at the top. He tells himself he doesn’t mind. He makes it a game: he counts the bubbles, and each time he hits twelve he replays a nice memory._

_Third hunger. The bubbles in his stomach get bigger and don’t pop the way they should. No one has come since the door was locked. They haven’t sentenced him yet, no magistrate, no row of priests red and white. Murderer. Apostate. Yes, they have to punish him for that, so someone has to come. He makes frost on the walls so he can melt it and lick it off, stone and rot and cold._

_Fourth hunger makes his muscles cramp, stomach trying to curl up around itself and squeeze the extra space out. Panting against the stone floor, dirty straw. Circle of Magi had high walls like a prison, he’d thought, and oh, he was wrong, he was wrong. He’d known what it was, the things he could do, but they were so small that they hardly mattered. Frost pictures on the window to make his sister smile. Not enough to stop him from hitting–no. It wasn’t magic in the end that made it stop._

_Fifth hunger like an angry cat (orange mouser in the hayloft, he’d only wanted to see the kittens) inside him, scratching, scratching. He can’t calm it down, no matter how much he pets it or sings to it. Is this his sentence? No, Templars don’t do this. Order, procedure, a public showing. Not this. He shouts, bangs on the door, but no one comes. He is cold even when he’s not making ice._

_Sixth hunger like a ringing in his ears, a long, drawn-out whine. His head hurts. He doesn’t think he’s sleeping, but he can’t tell. Dark when he closes his eyes, dark when he opens them. More banging, more pleading, NOISE to make someone come. Anyone. Hands raw and twice their size, he kicks instead. What do you want? I’ll tell you anything!_

_Seventh hunger. He can’t make the ice anymore. His mouth is dry, his eyes are dry, his breath is dry, veins scraping together, no condensation he can lick from the walls. Throat too dry to shout, he talks. Yes, I am an apostate. Yes, I am a murderer. I’ll tell you how I did it. Please. Please._

_Eighth hunger. Last hunger. Breathing in the dark, barely disturbing the air. He is there, and then he is not._

Cole eats the apple. He takes it apart with hands and teeth and eats until there is nothing left. Varric’s laughter at his elbow,

“Guess you were hungry. You want some more?”

He does. They go to the tavern and Cabot brings meat and cheese and bread and he eats it all. Food, real in his stomach, taking up space and being warm. His hands shake and his shirt is getting dirty. Varric tells him to slow down, it’s not going anywhere, but he can’t and then–

Pain.

Something wrong.

Fourth hunger, stomach like a fist, squeezing–how can this be here again?

Not in the Spire, no dungeon, no Templars, but he can’t see, can’t breathe.

He’s still dying, never stopped dying and all of this–

Rhys, Evangeline–

all of it a dream in the dark

Never got out

He’s going to have to do it all again and he can’t, he can’t–

“Cole? Cole! Shit, kid, what happened?”

Knees on wooden boards, foulness puddling on the floor in front of him.

“It didn’t work. The food didn’t work so none of this is real and I have to do it all again. And I don’t want to, please.”

Arm around his waist urging ‘up, up’ so he stands, Varric solid and kind against his hip.

“Sorry about the mess, Cabot, put it on my tab. C’mon, let’s go outside.” Outside, air moving, courtyard moving, voices, real voices, not just his. “Here, rinse your mouth out. Um, swish the water around in your mouth and then spit.”

Water-in-leather, metal at the top. Cool. He holds water in his mouth, moves it with his tongue, and then lets it back out on the dirt. “Can you walk? Let’s go find Solas and a healer.”

Solas. Yes. He wants to, but the ground throws him down and there is sun in his eyes because his hat is gone.

 

He wakes up. He doesn’t remember falling asleep but he is in a bed and he smells linen and poultices. Infirmary. Varric.

“I fell asleep?”

“No, you fainted, that’s something different. But before that it looks like you had a panic attack.” Varric pulls his chair closer with a scraping noise. “Do you remember what happened?”

“The food hurt. It felt like the Spire again. In the dungeon. Fourth hunger feels like that.”

“Okay. So, basically, your stomach hurt and you got scared.” Not teasing now, no jokes.

“I can’t do it again, it won’t work. There’s no one coming to help this time because I’m already here.”

“I assure you, Cole, you are not dying.” Solas, cool and echoing as he comes in. “You simply ate something that was too rich for your stomach. Your body isn’t used to eating yet and you gave it a shock.”

“It was my fault, kid, and I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

“You gave us a scare, young man.” Healer, face lined like a tree, rings of years. Poor boy, he’s just skin and bones. She’s carrying a bowl of something. Snake in his stomach coiling–

“Whoa, whoa, relax, she’s not going to hurt you.” Varric’s hand on his shoulder is shaking–no, that’s Cole.

“I’ve never treated anyone with your exact circumstances before, but we’re going to proceed as if you’ve been very ill.” The healer sets the bowl down. “We’ll start you on clear liquids like water and broth, and introduce you to other things as your body adjusts. It will take time, but it will happen. Now, take a sip. Just a small one, then wait.” The healer helps him tilt the bowl to his lips and he takes some in his mouth. Chicken stock, warm like sunlight on a window. It goes down and does not hurt. It does not come back.

“Alright?”

He nods.

“Good. Why don’t you work on that for a while. Take your time, and if you start to feel sick again, stop and wait until it passes.”

“What you experienced was a result of the physical and emotional trauma you underwent in the Spire.” Solas again, calm and reasonable with hints of disapproval underneath. Disapproval at him? No, for him.

“But I wasn’t Cole yet.”

“You hadn’t inhabited him yet, no, but you have access to all his memories. Being more human, I expect you will begin to remember other things that Cole–or Cole’s body–knew.”

“Will this happen again?”

“Possibly. Fear is the most difficult emotion to forget, as I’m sure you well know. However it can be overcome.” Eyes flick to Varric. “Mortals have that capacity.”

Varric folds his arms over his chest and raises his eyebrows. Did he just admit he was wrong?

“You’ve got to learn how to take care of yourself. I know you kind of got dropped in the deep end, so if something doesn’t make sense come find me or Solas. Or whoever you want. Just ask.”

Cole is smiling. A hand in the dark, like light but not. Yes. Odd displacement, double vision of reaching/being reached for.

“I remember this, too.”

“What?”

“Compassion. The other side.” He drinks more. It is good.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Aristophanes: "Hunger knows no friend but its feeder".


End file.
